And the Emmy Will Go To… Predicting Winners Based on Social Media

It happens nearly every award show… someone (or something) takes home the coveted award and the audience at home is left scratching their heads wondering “Who decides this vote?” Because if the audience viewers were left to choose the winners, the outcome would often be different.

On Monday night, the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards will be held to honor the best in U.S. prime time television. Winners are chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, but who’s to say their opinion holds more weight when bestowing honors to the best in TV. Shouldn’t the people who actually watch the shows each episode be able to decide who’s best?

We started monitoring the top categories to see who would win the Emmy if it were based on the volume of chatter and overall sentiment from the TV viewers themselves (for the past 24 hours). We’ll revisit the data next week to see if the winners chosen by the Academy and the winners chosen by TV viewers match up.

Best Comedy Series

Orange is the New Black… by a landslide! In just 24 hours, #OITNB got nearly 15,000 mentions. That’s more than double Louie’s 6,505 as second runner-up and triple Big Bang Theory’s 4,695 as third place. Past winner Modern Family received a mere 2,509 mentions but lead the category in positive sentiment at a whopping 72.9%! Louie followed with 27.9% positive sentiment.

Best Drama Series

Game of Thrones… by a TON! In 24 hours, Game of Thrones received 20,610 mentions. The beloved Breaking Bad was not far behind with nearly 16,000 mentions. But that’s as close as it got. House of Cards, rounding out third, had only 2,635. House of Cards, however, has the highest positive sentiment with 46.6% with True Detective following with 35.2%.

Lead Actor – Comedy

The social votes are in! Ricky Gervais is clearly the frontrunner in this category with 3,352 mentions in 24 hours versus Louis C.K.’s 753 and Jim Parsons’ 556. As for positive sentiment leaders? Don Cheadle leads the pack with 45.6% followed by Louis C.K. with 40.3% and Matt LeBlanc with 39.4%.

Lead Actress – Comedy

If social media could crown the queen of comedy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus would rule. She received 1,684 mentions in 24 hours while Taylor Schilling came in second with 991 and Amy Poehler rounded out third with 898. Amy Poehler, however, has a whopping 65.6% positive sentiment rating beating out Taylor Schilling with 59.4% and Julia Louis-Dreyfus with 50%.

Lead Actor – Drama

Who’s the drama king according to social? Bryan Cranston gets the honors! He received 4,764 mentions in 24 hours. Matthew McConaughey followed with 2,622 and John Hamm followed with 971. Jeff Daniels leads the pack in positive sentiment with 56% ahead of Kevin Spacey with 37.6% who is closely followed by Bryan Cranston with 35.9%.

Lead Actress – Drama

And the drama queen honors goes to… Kerry Washington! With 1,281 mentions in 24 hours, she’s won the viewers votes… but barely. Claire Danes is a close second with 1,198 mentions followed by Lizzy Caplan with 703. While third in mentions, Lizzy Caplan is first in sentiment with an impressive 88.24% positive sentiment. Claire Danes comes in second (again) with 59.8% and Robin Wright rounds it out with 55.3%.

And those are the results… if TV viewers and social media were doing the voting. Do you agree with these numbers? More interesting, does the Academy agree with these numbers? We’ll find out next Monday night as the honors are bestowed.